Stopping by
by daylightdreamer17
Summary: A wet night and a slippery road brings an adult Sarah into a few new real life connections...and back to a place she's never forgotten. But will she be able to solve her problems so neatly a second time?
1. Prologue

Author's Note: The legal stuff, of course. Everything created by Jim Henson belongs to Jim Henson. I'm leaning heavily on his creativity. Title is borrowed from a certain Robert Frost poem.

And just go with it for a little while. This is not an instant gratification story. There needs to actually be characters first, you know…

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Prologue

There are things you remember when you are dying, a scatter-shot set of photographs, clear, perfect, that can never be sorted out again. If you are lucky enough to survive dying, or say, rather, that you are lucky enough to have it halted mid-way, you discover that these slivers of sparkling glass memory never fade, never rust, remain clear in your mind.

She remembered starting the car, leaving her apartment and thinking that it was empty. Thinking of how tired she was of it being empty. The sun was setting behind clouds soggy with rain, and the air was slowly turning blue, deep almost-night, like the most perfect silk, with the black skeletons of trees interrupting like lace.

The streetlights glinting off a CD of show-tunes, her favorite ones, the ones she'd always wanted to sing. Moon River. Send in the Clowns. Love is only Love. Remembered thinking with relief that it didn't hurt so much, anymore. The soft curl of music filling her little no-nonsense car, lulling her, like the blue-ing air with it's leafless lace of black, and how that sense of unreality wasn't helped when the rain fell. The lamps in the opposing lane turned to small stars of light in the raindrops on her windshield. The rhythm of her windshield wipers.

Thinking of nothing but going to town and visiting with her parents. The books she'd bought for Toby sitting in the seat beside her. And then reaching the bridge and her headlights catching the rippling mirror of black spreading across the center of the road. Knowing, somehow, before it happened, what would happen, though perhaps that was just an echo of the moment her wheels hit the puddle and kept going.

Thinking as her breaks locked that hydroplaning always sounded like some kind of wonderful watercraft. Something that could fly.

Spinning out over the water, and how it didn't seem real at all. The air was still black-laced blue, lit orange by the street-lamps and falling behind her. And her mind agreed with Barbara Streisand, where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns. Quick. Send them in, as the car hit the water and she watched it sink into the river.

Now she struggled. Now she fought, snapping open her seatbelt, as reality sank its teeth into that blue dreamy-ness. She got it open and could almost get out…could almost get out, her window had shattered and she could almost get out. But the window had shattered because the driver's side of the car hit the river first, and the door had crumpled in on her left arm, pinning it between her seat and the door.

She shouted for help, knowing no one would hear her. Not over their cars. Not over their music and their thoughts. And the water was rushing through her open window, so cold it burned her and made her want to scream.

_But I want to live._ She thought, and struggled harder. Later, she would learn she struggled so much she nearly fractured the arm caught in the door, but it remained just that. Caught. Like the rest of her.

_But I want to live. I want to live. _

_I wish to live. I wish to live, and I'm going to die within a shout of the highway, and no one is ever going to hear me. And I. Wish. To. LIVE._

And she tried one more time when the water began to creep over her face—such an appropriate word, some part of her mind whispered, and now the world was no longer blue and orange, but black and orange, right before the water reached her eyes. She thought she saw a shape in that black and orange.

And through the water, she thought she heard a shout, a wrenching pain beside her, and then no pain and no more pressure, no more being pinned. She felt hands on her shoulder, pulling her out of the car. She felt air on her face, and rain, and she tried to open her eyes to see who her rescuer was. She knew who he was, but she had to see…

But it was too much. And she was too tired.

Though, she supposed, the sound in the distance meant once again, she'd gotten her wish.

Sirens.

Sarah Williams supposed she would live after all.


	2. Chapter 1

Author's note: Thanks so much for the kind words, folks. I really appreciate it. Don't expect too much action for the next couple of chapters…but remember to bring a seat-belt after that.

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Chapter 1: Meetings

"I've got a headache."

Robert Williams nodded gently at his daughter and attempted to juggle the rather large, rather dramatic bouquet of white lilies he carried under his left arm. "I know, hon, but Irene wanted to send you something."

Sarah sighed and nodded. She pressed on the bridge of her nose, right between her eyes, in the vague hope it would ease the dull throb in her head. "Did you _try_ to tell her that lilies give me headaches on a good day? And on second thought, You told her that I'm in the _hospital_, and not that I'm _dead_, right?"

"Yes, but you know Irene. Once she gets an idea in her head…" He shrugged. Irene Williams was a very nice woman, something Sarah understood intellectually. Robert loved her. Her son loved her. And on a good day, when things went well, Sarah enjoyed her company. But Irene, for all her intelligence, made assumptions about her stepdaughter and then refused to adjust for reality. Years ago, Irene decided that Sarah liked lilies. She also thought Sarah enjoyed numerology, God knew why, and that her favorite color was gray. Sarah had never, ever been able to convince Irene that she was wrong.

That stubbornness had been one of the many reasons their early relationship got off on the wrong foot. Sarah had assumed that Irene was doing it on purpose. The truth was closer to a sort of blindness, combined with Irene's stubborn refusal to ever, ever concede one inch of ground once she took a stance on something. The same character traits that made Sarah's early teenage years difficult had turned out to be a godsend later on in life. It just didn't help that Sarah was nearly as stubborn as Irene, and possessed of that young assumption that the world absolutely did revolve around her. It had not, and that relaxation had come about fairly spectacularly.

Sarah pulled her head out of the clouds and turned to the immediate problem of what to do with Irene's lilies. "Put them over by the window." Sarah pointed. The window was still dark with leftover night, but in the morning it might look as if she'd thoughtfully put her stepmother's gift in the window for sun. More importantly, the flowers, with their heavy smell and orange, persistent pollen, would be far away from any air vents. And Sara had to admit, they were beautiful lilies. Even if they were…lilies. Complete with funerary connotations Sarah was really not ready to acknowledge.

Her father complied, then crossed the room to sit beside the bed. It was a private room—Thank you, Daddy—and as non-discript and antiseptic as any other hospital room Sarah had ever been in. The alcohol taste-smell of antiseptic permeated the air, the paper-clothing Sarah had been given in lieu of her soaked coat, jeans, blouse and sneakers were that iconic green color of the hospital patient, and underneath it all was the creepy, almost gone smell of sickness. You didn't ever want to stay in a hospital. Sarah supposed that perhaps they were designed that way.

Robert gave his adult daughter a gentle pat on her shoulder. It was the left one, which had required four stitches and a x-ray but mercifully, was not broken. She did not exactly wince, but she smiled up at her father.

"That's gonna be purple." Sarah said. "Shoulder to elbow. See if it won't."

"Oh, don't doubt it. What have the doctors said?" He asked.

"Well, so far, it's exactly what it looks like. Sore neck, sore arm, sore everywhere. I'm probably going to wind up on an anti-biotic course for inhaling river-water, and because I passed out, they want to keep me overnight. They _think_ it was hypothermia combined with shock, but they're not letting me go until they're sure." She said.

She had come-to in the emergency room, where a doctor, two residents and an intern were struggling to get her to come to. After a few quick questions to assure all parties that Sarah Williams was awake and quickly reaching full mental capacity, they'd breathed a sigh of relief and continued exams a little less frantically than before. Her attendants were reduced to a resident and the intern, who poked, prodded, injected, drew, tested and finally sent her up three floors to get x-rays and a quick scan to make sure her brain was not swelling. It was now technically early morning, and the only reason Sarah was not sleeping was because she'd reached her room about three minutes before her father.

"I hope I didn't ruin dinner." Sarah said.

"Ah, it's alright." Robert waved her off, but they both knew it was not. It was what Irene had called Sarah's Day, when for a reason her father and stepmother couldn't fathom, Sarah would drag Toby off and treat him like it was his birthday. A few years ago, _drag_ had been the operative word. Toby didn't understand why _that_ day was special any more than his parents did, and he was a _boy_. He didn't like being seen around with his _sister_. But the last couple of years, he'd simultaneously discovered reading and that having Sarah around to do whatever you wanted once a year wasn't such a bad thing after all. Sarah had made yesterday a bit of a disappointment. Ironically enough, she'd had car trouble that morning. The overhead light had shorted out and the battery had died. She would have come anyway, but she lived several hours away from the rest of the Williams now, and Robert did not like the idea of his daughter driving any distance in a malfunctioning car. She'd spent Their Day on the phone with Toby, picking out books and promising that she'd make up for it tomorrow. Both could tell Toby had no idea how to hide his disappointment, and both were trying to pretend Sarah didn't notice his poor acting.

"And his books got ruined." Sarah muttered.

"Only you would feel bad that books got ruined in a car-wreck you walk away from. And speaking of walking away from a wreck…I just met the most_interesting _young man down in the hallway."

_Hands on her shoulders, pulling her out of the car…_

_**I wish to live**_.

Sarah blinked and tried to put her sudden case of the shivers to rest. She'd always been a little bit careful of just casually wishing for things, and had always felt a little bit worried if she slipped up. But the feeling was old and stale, and faded quickly. Instead, she smiled at her father, shifting deeper into the warmth of her bed to hide the sudden goose bumps on her arms. Her father continued, oblivious. "He seemed genuinely worried about you, too. Found him pacing in the hallway when he could have gone home, and damn if he didn't pounce on me the second he heard me ask for you."

"So I guess I've got a Prince Charming now?" Sarah said.

"At least a Prince Valiant." Robert said. And then hesitated.

"Oh, go get him, Daddy. The doctors said someone's gonna keep me awake for the next few hours anyway. Might as well be people who actually_care._" Sarah said.

Robert nodded, stood, and was at the door as if the whole thing was orchestrated.

Which, of course, it probably was. Irene didn't care much, and oddly, neither did her mother, but Robert had made it very clear that, even if the idea of his only little girl getting married made him cringe, he expected grandchildren. Lots of grandchildren. And he wasn't happy about Sarah wasting all that potential grandkid-quality-time being single.

_Hell._ Sarah thought, watching her dad. _He probably had the guy's genes analyzed as soon as Dad found out he had saved me._

The concept that the man who rescued her could have been married was eliminated by her father's eagerness—and that he was still at the hospital and not at home, sleeping. No, fate would not be kind. Robert Williams would do the cupid impression, and things would likely degenerate from there.

Her Dad kept talking to the man behind the door, a little too long for things to be totally spontaneous. Sarah had to smile as her ever-whimsical mind shot up more nonsense. _Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain_. Not that much difference between a curtain and a door. Only flexibility.

But the Wizard of Oz reminded her of something else, and she felt a tiny spark of…of something like fear, and a little like anticipation.

_It's the same day. Fourteen years to the day. And I wished, didn't I?_

The memories connected to those thoughts were things Sarah never let out into daylight, and she kept them rigidly repressed now. She wasn't afraid of those memories, not anymore, not fourteen years and gone, but she was aware that those memories didn't belong here. Not in a hospital surrounded by the best medicine money can buy. Not in the presence of her parents, stepparents and brother. Not even in her daily life. Perhaps in the silence of her own room, but maybe not even there.

…_but if you turn it this way, it will show you your dreams…_

No. Those memories were not frightening. They were dangerous. They had a tendency to make the shadows stretch. They felt like that unreality when the sun has gone but the light has not. A world of blue, laced by the skeletal limbs of trees…

She yanked her mind back to reality, to florescent lighting and the smell of rubbing alcohol. Things were well lit here, and if the lighting had its own unreality, it was a bland one. One that bled the fantastic out of the air. Cheap curtains, white walls and awful Berber carpeting. About as safe as one could get, even safer with her father filling the doorway. Her Dad stepped back and lead…

For an instant, memory filled in something else. Something beautiful, wonderful, wild, terrifying, frightening and wicked. Sarah saw black capes and sparkling eyes, heard snatches of music lost to memory's oft-disturbed sleep, and perhaps almost felt the sable-brush of owl wings…

Then fancy gave up its ghost and died, killed by the Berber carpet, perhaps. A perfectly ordinary man walked through the door. A little older than she had expected. She guessed thirty, and expected she'd be in the neighborhood. He had soft blue eyes, almost warm, and while his hair was as blonde as that memory-ghost's had been, his was curly and cut short to his head. There were sticks and bits of grass on his red sweatshirt, and a high-water-mark right up to his shoulders.

_He's Nice. _Sarah thought, and he was. Not exceptional. If you designed a man to be ordinary, this would be the man, but…nice. He had the sort of face that made one think…nice.

He walked just behind Robert, pausing in consideration, and perhaps a bit confused. "Hi. I'm David." He paused, then held out his hand. "David King."

Sarah fished her own hand out from under the blankets. Her right, unbruised, shook his hand. She felt a little surprised at how warm and smooth his palm was, soft. His grip was strong for someone whose palm was so soft. She would have expected at least workout calluses.

"Sarah Williams." Sarah said. She watched him intently as she said it.

He already knew her name, of course. "Pleasure to meet you, Sarah." He held eye contact, and Sarah found she didn't really like the idea of breaking it right now.

"Well, Sar." Her Dad shortened her name a bit, and she barely resisted rolling her eyes. "You got to be tired. Me and David will be waiting outside for now."

"Get him some new clothes." She said, before Robert got too far away. "He can't stay in those cold ones."

"I've got it. You sleep." Robert said.

Sarah nodded, and watched the door close.

David, huh?

She was awakened by a nurse with a flashlight and exhaustion, thirty minutes later.


	3. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Do I REALLY have to state that none of this belongs to me? If it was thought of by Jim Henson, it belongs to Jim Henson. I'm just borrowing. Etc. Ect. Enjoy

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Chapter 2

By six o'clock the next day, Sarah was given a good bill of health. It was hours too late for Sarah, who didn't have enough patience to endure hospitals. Once she'd recovered from the late night, Sarah had dressed and begun the long, tedious process of taking care of her damned car. Phone calls. Lots of phone calls. And several nurses who were ignored and likely thought Sarah was doing it just to annoy them. The animosity was mutual. Sarah understood, intellectually, that nurses were overworked, underpaid, exhausted human beings with too much stress and too many responsibilities to be the sunny stereotype in the movies. In practice, however, Sarah did not like nurses. They poked. They prodded. They talked _at_ you to each other, as if you were a lamp or the bed, and they had a nasty tendency to interfere with whatever life you managed to bring with you. And if that sunny stereotype arrived, with enough competence to manage her patients, rather than endure them, Sarah's conversational abilities would probably have descended to four-letter words. As it was, Sarah suspected her discharge was partially because the nurses on that floor were not interested in seeing Ms. Williams spend another night under their care.

She was also sure that if she _had_ needed to stay, the floor nurse would have resorted to sedatives.

But she was leaving, and two of those phone-calls that afternoon had been to her father. Robert Williams couldn't quite get the discharging nurse to surrender the wheelchair—she hadn't been on Sarah's floor—but he was certainly happy to walk his daughter to the door.

Her face brightened when he handed her a big, brightly-wrapped pot of fist-sized orange marigolds. "To make up for the lilies, honey." He said, and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. He looked a little bit like Santa, sans beard, in a green-and-blue flannel shirt, hands in his pockets.

"Ah, it's Ok. I put them to good use." Sarah had asked one nurse, a little less harried than the others, if they could give the beautiful but unwanted lilies to someone who hadn't gotten flowers or visitors in a while. It was a trick she'd learned years ago, during a longer hospital stay. They'd had to pick the pollen-shedding stamens out of the bouquet, but the flowers now brightened someone else's day.

"I won't tell Irene if you won't." Robert said. Then paused, biting his lower lip.

Sarah sighed. Her father was transparent under the best of circumstances—namely, total strangers. She was his daughter. "What is it." She said. Not a question.

Robert chuckled. "No flies on you, huh?"

"Nope." Sarah said. She buried her nose in one of the big golden flowers and inhaled. The smell was sharp, one that many people called unpleasant, but one that Sarah liked. It had an image of a dusty landscape, a thousand walls in the distance, buried somewhere in that sharp, astringent scent. Oh, she'd agreed with everyone else for most of her childhood, but early in her teenage years, a couple days after her relationship with her half-brother preformed a total one-eighty, she'd gone with her father to a nursery and immediately fallen in love with the way marigolds smelled. Even Sarah hadn't understood, until she heard in a collage psych class that smell is the sense most tied to memory. It gave her a safe answer for her parents, though for herself…nothing tied to those memories was anywhere near safe.

Sarah's house was full of marigolds.

She took one more sniff, then turned her attention back to her father. "Whatcha got planned, Dad?" she said.

"Well…Toby and I figured we'd take you home. I mean, our home. It's closer than your place…and to be honest, Sarah, I don't want you home alone. I'd feel better if you slept in with us."

"Uh-huh. And?" Sarah said. She wavered the fingers of her right hand a bit like a conductor directing the orchestra. Which wasn't that far-fetched an analogy, as she knew perfectly well what her father was going to do next.

"And I invited David King to dinner. Sort of a thank-you-for-saving-my-daughter thing."

"Uh-huh." Sarah said. She looked up at the nurse. _See what I have to put up with?_ The woman was nearer her father's age than hers, with Revlon red hair and basic makeup, but she was suppressing a grin. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the fact that David King is my age, would it?"

Her dad sighed. "No flies." He said, with a weak you-caught-me chuckle.

"Not a one." Sarah said. They passed through the automatic doors, leaving the astringent smell of antiseptic and alcohol behind—two smells that, for all their clarity, Sarah couldn't stand. Unlike marigolds, those had no pleasant memory associations at all. Sarah waited with what she felt was truly admirable patience for the second set of doors to fully close, then pushed out of the wheel chair before the nurse could do much more than pause. She took several steps, stretched, then transferred the marigold pot to her left hand to brush the hospital smell off her jacket. Robert had provided brand new clothes for the occasion.

Sarah nodded. Hospital time was once again over and done with, thank God. "Ok, dad. Where's the car?"

Robert pointed down the line of patiently waiting cars beside equally patient parking meters. Sarah didn't have trouble finding it. There was a short, gold-headed boy standing next to a tall, solidly built young man who, undoubtedly, would evoke the word "nice".

Sarah sighed and looked at her father.

"I bumped into him at the gift shop when I went for the Marigolds." Robert said.

"Uh-huh." Sarah said.

"Honest to God." Robert said.

"You know that's what people say when they're lying, right?" Sarah said.

"Yes." Robert said.

"Good. Just…making sure. Hey Toby!" Sarah said, barely managing to turn the blonde cannonball back into a fourteen-year-old boy before he put her back in that damn hospital room.

"Don't ever do that again, Sar. EVER!" Toby said, once he disengaged. "I was _worried._" As if being worried was an affront to his general mental condition.

"I promise I won't ever do it again." She said, then turned her attention to the other blonde. "Mr. King."

"Please." He held out his hand. "Call me David."

"David." Sarah said. She shook his hand a second time.

"Nice to see you up and about." He said, with a little bit of a frown. "I hope the doctors gave you a clean bill of health?"

"Yep. And I made it out with the bare minimum of pills, too." She said. "I hear you're coming to dinner with us?"

David nodded. "Though if you'd rather take a rest, I can take a rain check." He said.

"Ah, it's fine." She said, waving off his concern. "It was an accident that could have been a _very_ bad one, but thanks to you, it wasn't. The least I can do is provide dinner. Or at least facilitate it." She gestured for the car. "Shall we?"

They retreated to her father's bright gold Ford van. Toby demonstrated his concern by surrendering the front seat to his sister, and his lap to the potted marigold. David King took the seat behind her. Sarah gave her father a _look_.

"We drove David here from the Nursery." Robert said.

"Right." Sarah said.

"I'm serious."

Sarah nodded, and spared a glance back at David, who had a small smile on his lips. "Are we going to have to go back to get your car?" She asked.

He shook his head. "You father and I already discussed it. I'll take a cab home." He said.

"That's a very Formal way of saying things." Sarah said.

"Habit." He said. The sunlight slanted between the hospital building at last, and his curly hair was suddenly a backlit gold. Kodak moment for the all-American boy-turned-man. Sarah grinned.

"If you'll sit back down, Sarah, we'll get started."

Sarah suppressed the wince as she twisted back around in her seat. Her left arm hurt most, but it felt as if every snew in her body was sore. She settled down without further complaint. After a moment of thought, she also took her marigolds back from Toby. As the car drove away from the curb, Sarah buried her nose in another of the big flowers, inhaling the sharp smell and the memories that always came with it.

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Sarah had long ago decided that everyone had their own medium of creativity. Sarah's was music, a natural outgrowth of her early love of anything resembling theatrics. Her brother was still figuring things out, but given his voracious reading habits, Sarah bet money that he would be a writer. Irene Williams was an artist of the social scene, capable of navigating any conversational ocean without running aground on conflict—except, it seemed, when it came to her stepdaughter, but Sarah was usually forgiving. Her father, however, had driven the idea home. He couldn't write, draw, paint, sing, and if you handed him a hammer and nails, he'd proudly display small lumps of twisted iron and purple thumbs. No, his creativity was saved for his one, true calling.

Robert Williams was a very _creative_ driver.

Sarah and Toby had both agreed that the only way to enjoy Robert's creativity—and survive driving with him—was fatalism. If fate decided that Robert's luck had run out, and the latest performance ended in the expected disaster, at least death would be quick, and look very, very cool on the five-o-clock news. Irene's reaction was similar, though one could gage how nervous she was by how white her grip on the ceiling handle was.

David King, unfortunately, hadn't the experience of seasoned Williams travelers, and was thus completely unprepared for just how incredible Robert's creative genius actually was. To his credit, he had not corrected Robert, passed out, or bailed from the moving vehicle on the logic that he had roughly equal odds of survival. Sarah suspected it was a near thing. Strangers—even heroic gentlemen that fit the dictionary definition of _nice_—could only stomach so much chaotic mayhem before they cracked completely.

Arrival at the Williams's residence was far, far too anticlimactic for such a performance. Sarah stepped out of the front seat to the Amazonian front lawn—Toby disliked mowing and Robert was waging a passive-aggressive war for one the sit down mowers John Deere built to give grown men a replacement for go-karts—and resisted the urge to kiss the grass. They should have been greeted by news crews and cheering crowds, ala David Blane. Still, Irene's trim-cut figure was more than enough. She emerged from the house as the family van's protests signaled her husband's arrival, and hurried down the walk. It was a sign of just how worried _she_ had been about her stepdaughter that she actually unbent enough to give Sarah a bear hug.

"Dear God, sweetheart. I was _so worried._" She said, and Sarah returned the hug with a smile. Her stepmother was as blonde now as she'd been when she'd married Robert, though the golden locks were now the product of Revlon. She felt that aging gracefully was for either for bohemian artists or people who made less money than she did. Irene had come out of the house wearing "just" an expensive blouse, designer jeans and a string of pearls, and considered herself dressed down for cooking. She was highly successful in her field and knew it. She wore that success in her bones, and dressed to match.

Irene disengaged and turned to David King. "Now. Introduce me." She said.

"Irene, this is David King. He pulled me out of the car. David, this is my step-mother, Irene Williams." Sarah said.

David offered his hand and Irene took it. Pleasantries were exchanged. "I can't tell you how grateful we are for your kindness, Mr. King."

"David." David said.

Irene nodded, filing it away. Sarah didn't expect Irene to call him "Mr. King" again—though if she did, Sarah knew that'd be it. Like the lilies, there were just ideas Irene couldn't rid herself of. "I hope you like chicken marinara." She said. Irene, like Sarah, wasn't an exceptional cook. She just knew the best take out in the city and could afford to order out for most meals. Sarah partially envied her the luxury, but felt that it was a good example of waste.

David indicated that chicken marinara would be fine, and Irene began elaborating on the planned meal while she ushered the family unit and guests up the stone walkway leading to the picturesque house Irene and Robert had tamed to near-perfection. The front yard might be a bit overgrown, but the rose garden in front of the wrap-around porch was perfect, right down to the border plants. The house was a 1920s style, though every bit of wiring and plumbing was updated, and seen from outside, with the sun starting to set and the sky a riot of color, it was positively heartwarming. Right out of a Norman Rockwell or Thomas Kincade painting.

If, of course, one chose to ignore the bike lying across the front porch, the litter of a young boy's electrical equipment, or the lawn-mower engine spread across a towel. The usual debris of life was definitely there. Once, not too long ago, Sarah's own bike and rollerblades had added to the mess.

Inside, things had a similar state of perfection downstairs. Fourteen years ago Irene Williams wanted her house to be the height of current fashion. Now, Irene Williams wanted her house to be the height of 1920's fashion. Everything was warm, earthy tones and brass, either lacy and art deco or masculine and art deco—the latter being Robert William's office. Everything except the office was also immaculate. Most of the furnishings were antique. The rest were expensive reproductions.

Sarah knew the upstairs would be different. That's where the clothing hung on banisters and exercise equipment, where the old couch had gone when it developed a little wear and tooth marks from the dog. The TV was up there. There was even a small fridge for sodas. That was where her family _lived_. Here was where Irene impressed people.

Still…there were memories here, of things that weren't social obligations. She stood in the hall for a moment, enjoying it. There were bad memories here, but there were many, many good ones. And of course, this is where that other species of memory, the dangerous kind, came. Things had Happened here.

"Sarah."

She turned at her stepmother's voice. Irene had a little frown on her face. _You're neglecting your guest._ It said. She looked behind Irene to see the boys standing in the living room examining an antique something-or-other.

"Sorry. Wool gathering." She said.

"You always are." Irene said.

"Sorry." Sarah said, hurrying up the stairs. Irene stopped her with a gentle hand on her right shoulder.

"Sarah…I…" Irene said, then faltered. They looked at each other for a moment. Time had healed the old conflict between them, but the differences that caused it were as ingrained in their souls as the rings in a tree trunk. Sarah wasn't quite the theater-bohemian her mother had been, but she was definitely artistic. Irene was a businesswoman. The closest she got to artistic was Martha Stewert, and even then, only if the project didn't ruin her manicure. It wasn't a personality conflict. It was a clash of worlds. The things that divided them were a part of their souls. Peace had finally come through compromise, but they would never, ever be as close as both women wished they could have been.

"That's a nice young man your father brought home." Irene said.

"That's not what you were going to say." Sarah said.

Irene nodded. "I was wondering why you never come over." Straight, to the point, and completely Irene. The next words, however, were a little bit of a surprise. "And to apologize. If it's my fault."

Sarah shook her head, really smiling now. "Actually, I was going to apologize last night. I've got a…kind of an interview coming up, and I wanted my portfolio to look good before I flew up there. It's not fair to you, Dad or Toby for me to stay away that long. I lost track of a lot of things getting ready for it."

"Well…it's not good for you either. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for the career-minded woman." Irene said, with a grin and a laugh that belonged at a cocktail party. "But I know your social life suffers for it. A couple of your friends have been calling me to make sure that you're OK, and I think a few others in your circle were getting concerned."

Sarah blinked. "I…did not know that."

"I didn't think so. Sarah…you can't live your life in a hole. And I know you've got secrets, love. I know they're not ones you can share with me. But you can't bring back the past, sweetheart. No matter how hard you try."

"I'm not trying to bring back the past." Sarah said.

"You're trying to replace it." Irene said, and for a few moments had more love in her eyes than Sarah could bear. She ducked her gaze and looked down at her hands.

"I just don't want you to get lost. I've seen it happen to people in my industry. They become their work. And while I know your choice takes more work than most…I worry. Because I can see the same thing happening to you that nearly happened to me. Your father is what saved me, Sarah." Irene looked past Sarah to the trio of men in the parlor. Sarah turned her head, then sighed and rolled her eyes. Both Toby and Robert were discussing the finer points of Robert's model train collection. "Hence, the that's a nice young man comment." Irene finished.

"Not you too." Sarah said, but she was laughing.

Irene gave her a second hug, this one a little more awkward than the last, but a genuine attempt to bridge the gap, at least. "I might not be as kid-crazy as Bobby," She said, using Roberts nickname. "And I can understand if you want to be _single_. But there's a difference between being _single_ and being _alone._"

Sarah nodded, biting her lip to keep from admitting just how deep Irene's words cut. They were spoken without the slightest intention to hurt, which was probably why they stung as much as they did. Sarah's lonely apartment, all the dinners eaten alone, if she ate dinner at all. Sarah made things. Sarah created. Sarah wrote songs and told stories and painted the worlds to go with them both…but she still went to a twin-sized bed at night, and her apartment was always empty and alone.

"I date." Sarah said, but it was less of a protest and more of a plea. Sarah _had_ dated, but given up on it after several years of…nothing. The only different between the dates she had set up herself and the ones Irene and Robert set up for her was that Irene's men were openly shallow. None of them were the sort you could talk to about the crazy secrets Sarah held. They were all too…tame.

Irene placed a loving hand on her shoulder. "I know." She said. "And I know you'll meet somebody, someday, who fits you. Robert and I fit. We're partners. And someday you'll find it too. But not if you let your work eat you alive."

Sarah nodded. The two woman studied each other for a moment, experience looking at exuberance. A laugh from the parlor caused Irene to jump.

"Well, that was pretty deep for me, hon. How about helping me with dinner to make up for it? Only if you're up to it, that is."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "I'm _fine_." She said, and followed her stepmother into the kitchen.


End file.
